Two Choices
Two Choices “Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.” - Aristotle --------- "Everything that guy just said is bullshit." - Vinny, My Cousin Vinny 'What It Is' Two Choices is an exploration of the the nature of choice and chance - a crowd-authored chronicle of Matt and the choices he made, and of those he did not. We all remember - with great fondness - the Choose Your Own Adventure ''books from our childhood. Well, not all of us. If you're too young to have any idea what I'm talking about, that's okay...welcome! The idea behind the ''Choose Your Own Adventure ''books was that the reader got to pick between two or three options of what happened next, then turned to the corresponding page. All of the choices, however, ultimately led to but a few pre-determined endings. But - as we all know far too well - that's not how life works. The sad fact of the matter is that when we make a choice, our lives are forever changed, for better or worse. How different would your life be if you chose to go to a different school, accepted that other job offer, or dated that other person? What about if you sat in a different seat on your first day of high school, leading to you make a different friend, which led to a whole different set of friends, and so on? That's where ''Two Choices ''begins. Our everyman protagonist, Matt, steps into his new high school in his new town and has to decide where to sit. How his story unfolds from there is literally limitless. '''How it Works' Reading The idea is simple: Start reading at the beginning, and at the end of the first chapter, choose option A or B. For example, when faced with an invitation from a girl to come to her house to study, Matt can either A) Ride with her to her house right then and there, or B) Drive himself and (because Matt is an oblivious moron) bring along another girl who needs to study for the same class. Upon choosing one of these options, you will be taken to Chapter A or Chapter B. Say you choose A. Read through Chapter A, and at the end of that chapter, choose option A or B. That will either take you to Chapter AA, or Chapter AB. Had you instead first chosen B, you would be headed toward Chapter BA, or Chapter BB. Then from Chapter BA, next will be either Chapter BAA, or BAB, and so on, and so on, and so on. At the end of some chapters, you may find that you do not have a choice between A and B, but rather between "Heads" or "Tails". Here, as you have already brilliantly surmised, what happens to Matt is determined literally by your flip of a coin. From Chapter BAA, a "heads" flip this will take you Chapter BAAH, and a "tails" flip to Chapter BAAT. Authoring When you come to the end of a storyline - i.e. where there is no more story left - that's where you become the story-teller. You - if you are so inclined - can write the next chapter in the saga of Matt. At the end, just include a choice or chance, and hyperlink them to new pages you create which are titled based on the chapter-naming convention described above. From there, you can write as far down a single storyline as you choose, or write chapters for each of the options you create. And so on and so on for as long as your heart desires. There are just a couple basic ground rules, until more detailed writing conventions become necessary, anyway. Ground Rule 1: Make your chapters at least a decent length. It's sometimes hard to tell how many "pages" you've written on a wiki - and especially if you're writing on a mobile device - but it would be best if you write at least six to eight paragraphs. Try to add depth to the characters, the effects of the choices, and so on, and make an effort to add something compelling, as opposed to just rushing on to the next choice. Ground Rule 2: The story is based in reality, and we need to work together to keep it that way. Mild sci-fi - i.e. plausible extensions of existing science - is fine, but fantasy is not. Matt ends up on a reality show that sends and then follows the first colonists to Mars? Perfect. Matt befriends a talking dragon? Deleted. Ground Rule 3: There are no happily ever afters. On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. (Tip of the hat to Chuck Palahniuk). What this means is that no storyline is truly finished until Matt is dead. This could mean Matt dies in a firey car accident when he's 17, or he drifts off in his sleep after living a long, full life, with grandkids and all. Editing In addition to writing your own chapters, you are welcome to edit and add to already existing chapters. In doing this, the one cardinal rule is that you cannot change the substance ''of the chapter or the choices at the end. Certainly fix grammatical errors, make the tone more literary, add character depth, humor, additional descriptions, or even conversations or events, but keep the basic plot structure of the chapter consistent with how it was written when you came to it. '''Re-Reading!!!' The best part about Two Choices is not the reading, or even the writing, but the re-reading. What would have happened if Matt had sat on the other side of the room? Rather than all choices leading to a limited number of endings like the classic Choose Your Own Adventures, every choice sets Matt's life down a completely new and different path. Explore how different choices would have forever changed Matt's life simply by jumping to the chapter you want to try a different choice in and start reading from there. Special Thanks A special thanks goes out to Edmund Jorgensen. Edmund's insight to use a wiki to create Two Choices ''allowed it in very short order to go from being a "concept" to a "project", and hopefully soon more of a "reality" than it is at present. Edmund is the author of two excellent books, most recently Other Copenhagens (and Other Stories), and before that, Speculation. If you have the means (and you do), I highly recommend picking them up. . . '''Start Reading!' Well, what are you waiting for? Start reading now at Chapter 0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Latest activity Photos and videos are a great way to add visuals to your wiki. Find videos about your topic by exploring Wikia's Video Library. Category:Browse